Next-chapter directions

The hardest part of writing a serial is not the typing. It is opening the app on a Tuesday and facing an empty box with two hundred thousand words behind it. When you accept a chapter, a small model reads it back and proposes three ways the next one could go, so the box is never quite empty.

The three moves

They are always shown in the same order, because left to right is how hard you are turning the wheel.

• Follow through — pays off what the last chapter set up. The direction you would probably have chosen anyway, written down so you can get on with it.
• Complicate — the same direction, harder road. What you were going to do, with the cost raised.
• Swerve — changes where the story is going.

A movement, not a moment

Each direction is built as three things: what it opens, how it turns, and where it lands. That is deliberate. “They fight on the bridge” is a moment and tells you nothing about the chapter; a movement tells you what state the story is in when the chapter finishes, which is the part you are actually choosing between.

A swerve still has to be seeded — it must turn on something you have already written, even if you did not plant it on purpose. A surprise nobody set up is not a twist, it is a different book starting on page 300.

Nothing is written until you pick one

Picking a direction fills the prompt box and nothing more. You edit it — change the location, cut a beat, add the thing you had actually been planning — and press ⌘⏎ when it says what you want. The choice is the whole feature, so it is never made for you and the box is never pre-filled.

Each direction also carries a line about why it was offered. That is for you, and is never sent to the writer.

Asking again, and turning it off

Hiding the three and showing them again is free — they are stored on the chapter they were read from. Asking for a fresh set is a new model call, so it is a separate, clearly-labelled link rather than a refresh button you might press by accident.

Directions are on by default and cost a fraction of a cent per accepted chapter, on a fixed cheap model regardless of what writes your prose. Turn them off in novel settings and you get an empty box every time, with no calls made on your behalf. Chapter one never has directions — there is nothing yet to read them from.